Changing Landscapes in Urban British Churchyards examines urban churchyards and kirkyards at six locations and representing 13 sites. Oxford, York, and Scarborough are among the English locations comprising inland, main, and coastal sites. Inverness, Edinburgh, and Dunbar are the Scottish counterparts. These sites were located on an east-leaning transect across the UK, joining London to Inverness.
The research is based on field-based visits since 2006 for the purpose of taking measurements and digital photographs as part of the (pictorial) record. The focus was to record six variables, namely headstone shape, dimensions (volume, including height), inscriptions - including introductions, fonts, and epitaphs - and motifs. In addition, orientational readings were taken and place names were noted.
Such research is necessary, especially at urban sites, because of the rapid decay evident in such polluted locations as well as influenced by management practices, and human destruction. The digital record acquired during the course of the research in combination with sketch maps for the sites provide a platform for conserving information about these memorials made available to other researchers.
Study findings convey years between 1604 and 1901, spanning the 17th to 19th centuries. Seriations derived from the research denote change in stylistic preferences on headstones during this time. In addition to temporal trends, there are also spatial variations between sites and locations noted in the study results. Most notably, there was a motif-epitaph progression observed as well as patterns associated with the English and Scottish sites.
The headstone shapes most prominent in these locations varied, as did introductions tendencies, and the number of fonts used. There was also a progression evident in motif use and epitaphs of varying lengths. Scottish sites showed a prevalence of more voluminous headstones, whereas the English sites tended to include more epitaphs. For the latter, the bag-of-words model and lines approach were employed to assess weathered headstones. It was also possible to classify introductions, motifs, and epitaphs according to Mortality, Salvation, and Remembrance themes in these features.
Importantly, the ebook contains detailed appendices that include tables of the variable information based on the headstone IDs provided in sketch maps of the 13 sites. This contributes to preserving locational information in addition to inscriptions and other features that may weather in time and become increasingly inaccessible. Future studies can use this work as a baseline from which re-photographic studies can arrive at cross-temporal comparisons of degradation and deterioration in the physical record. Also, it is possible to make cultural assessments of change based on such records.
About Editors:
Sylvia E. Thornbush is a doctoral candidate and has been investigating headstones located in urban churchyards since 2006, with research interests in motifs and iconography, seriation, and cross-temporal change (as part of historical archaeology, with a focus on Victorian material culture). Dr. Thornbush has coauthored a book on the use of photography to capture landscape changes. This is her second book as a lead author publishing her British headstone research.
Mary J. Thornbush is a researcher at the Faculty of Environmental Studies of York University, Canada. She spent her academic period at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment (at the University of Oxford, England, UK) as a doctoral student, postdoctoral researcher, and senior research associate. More recently, Dr. Thornbush became an assistant professor at Lakehead University, Canada, where she taught undergraduate courses in Geography and Interdisciplinary Studies. She is currently a part of the ecological footprint initiative at York University in a research capacity in the area of sustainability. Dr. Thornbush has published in various international journals and is the leading editor and author of several books, including Photographs Across Time: Studies in Urban Landscapes. She is an avid reviewer and serves on several journal editorial boards.
Keywords: environmental geomorphology, historical archaeology, Urban Landscapes, headstone memorials, temporal trends, inscriptions, motifs, epitaphs
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